Everything you ever wanted to know about professional jury preparation

• Does having a trial consultant help prepare a witness affect the witness's credibility in the minds of jurors?

• What can opposing counsel ask the witness about their trial preparation?

• Is a trial consultant's advice confidential, or must attorneys turn it over to the other side during discovery?

• What guidelines exist to make sure trial consultants practice ethically?

With attorneys increasingly using professional trial consultants to prepare witnesses for court, the latest issue of the Jury Expert (a publication of the American Society of Trial Consultants) tackles these questions head-on. The article, "Out and Proud: Ethical and Legal Considerations in Retaining a Trial Consultant to Assist with Witness Preparation," by David A. Perrott and Daniel Wolfe, summarizes existing laws, ethics, and practice guidelines. It’s available online HERE.

Other current articles of potential interest to my blog readers (all available online) include:

Colorism: The Often Un-discussed "-ism" in America's Workforce
Matthew S. Harrison discusses the issue of skin color bias ("colorism") in the context of workplace research. Three experienced trial consultants then apply this research to what we know about the courtroom and offer their ideas on what we need to pay attention to as we pursue litigation advocacy.

Law on Display
Neal Feigenson and Christina Spiesel, the authors of a new book on visual display of evidence in the courtroom, share their ideas on the impact of technology in trial. Two experienced trial graphics consultants respond and share their own perspectives.

16 Simple Rules for Jury Selection
Criminal defense attorney Mark Bennett offers up his 16 Simple Rules for Better Jury Selection. From the Nike rule to the Shrek rule to the Undertow--reading these will bring your jury selection skills up and leave you thinking about the process in a different way. Four experienced trial consultants offer their perspectives (and one new rule each!) on the ideas contained herein.

Book Review: Principles and Practice of Trial Consultation
Kevin Boully reviews Stanley Brodsky’s new book on trial consulting.

Italy to open first all-transgender prison

Italy is on the forefront of prison reform, with the world's first transgender prison set to open at Pozzale in picturesque Tuscany.

The prison, being converted from an almost-empty women's prison, will house about 30 of Italy's 60 transgender prisoners, according to a BBC report.

Psychologists will play a prominent role at the prison, according to the report.

Where and how to house transgender prisoners is a major policy dilemma for prison officials around the world. Abuse is common, and -- especially in men's prisons -- they are generally kept in protective segregation.

Prison Photography blog offers Haiti coverage

I learned of the new prison via a post at an intriguing blog called "Prison Photography: The Practice of Photography in Sites of Incarceration." That blog also offers top notch, up-to-the-minute coverage of the earthquake aftermath in Haiti, including news surrounding the escape of Haiti's entire penal population:

The National Penitentiary served to incapacitate the capital's violent gang members and leaders. Between 3,000 and 4,000 former inmates are now on the streets. The remains and records amid the rubble of the Ministry of Justice have been torched, destroying the information needed to track down the former prison population. Law and order are fragile now, but still, violent incidents are few.

The Seattle-based blogger, Pete Brook, uses his background in art history and museum studies to artfully present his views on prison reform at the blog, where he ponders the deeper philosophical meanings of prison photography:

If a camera is within prison walls we should always be asking; How did it get there? What are/were the motives? What are the responses? I consider the photograph as social document, therefore, what social and political powers are at play in a photograph’s manufacture? And, how is knowledge, related to those powers, constructed?

Ironically, Brook couldn't find much in the way of imagery to adorn his coverage of Italy's new transgender pen. He did, however, manage to dig up an old blog post by yours truly on transgender prisoners, which is how I stumbled across his blog. Check out the Prison Photography blog HERE, or its "alter ego," Photography Prison ("focused on more things photography than things prison"), HERE. The linkfest alone is worth the visit.

Comstock case prompts critical editorials

The Comstock case is prompting some hard-hitting editorials by influential newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal.

The L.A. Times took the opportunity to come out against not just the federal expansion that is the U.S. Supreme Court's focus in Comstock, but civil commitment of sex offenders more broadly:

"Using the civil commitment process to lengthen a criminal sentence is dishonest and dangerous," cries the subhead of yesterday's editorial, "Sex offenders behind bars: How long?"

That issue of federalism isn't unimportant, but the more pressing question is whether civil commitment for a mental condition is being misused to force felons to remain in prison after they've completed their legal sentences.

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, focused on a critical angle that I'm planning to blog more about soon -- the dangers to civil liberties inherent in expansion of civil commitment laws to other groups. Decrying the attempts by "feds [to] usurp another area of state law," the WSJ pointed out:

The implications go well beyond sex offenders…. If the Supreme Court reverses the lower court's decision, it will sanction the notion that nearly any appealing idea may be justified as necessary and proper. In other countries, loose detention laws give wide latitude to authorities to lock up any number of people who "threaten the public safety," including political prisoners. Maybe next the feds could force everyone in America to buy health insurance.

The L.A. Times editorial is HERE. The Wall Street Journal editorial is HERE. And, for any of you who want to really immerse yourselves in the Comstock case, I recommend the Sex Crimes blog, which has an incredibly comprehensive page of resources on the case.

Haiti: How to Help

This is a bit off topic from forensic psychology, but with the latest estimates of casualties at 100,000 or more for our southern neighbor, we all need to do what we can to help. Unfortunately, as Sarah van Gelder over at Yes! magazine points out, the wrong kind of well-intended help can feed corruption, dependence on outsiders, and even exploitation.

With that in mind, I recommend that blog readers who want to contribute donations to the relief effort consider the following organizations, all of which were already in Haiti with proven track records of providing medical care and fostering self-reliance there:

• Doctors Without Borders, which had more than 800 medical personnel in Haiti when the quake hit, has already treated hundreds of people injured in the quake and is working to get more staff into the country. Doctors are setting up medical facilities in tents, since their own clinics there are severely damaged.

• Partners in Health has been providing medical care to the poor in Haiti since 1983. PIH's flagship project is located there, and the agency has a strong record of promoting self-reliance through medical education. PIH is coordinating 120 doctors and 500 nurses already on the ground, with more personnel and supplies slated to arrive soon.

• Oxfam's Latin America emergency response team is headquartered in Haiti, so they are well positioned to respond quickly. They have a strong track record of supporting local rebuilding rather than funneling money to outside contractors. Right now, Oxfam is focusing on water and sanitation (to prevent the outbreak of waterborne diseases), sending badly needed medical supplies, and erecting temporary shelters for the quarter-million or more displaced residents of the devastated capital city.

Click on any of the above links to go to the group's web site and provide critically needed financial support.

Hat tip, Maya Schenwar of TruthOut (which is providing
live blog coverage of the tragedy) and Sarah van Gelder of YES! magazine

Comstock transcript available online

Media pundits are pontificating wildly about the likely outcome in Comstock v. United States, which the U.S. Supreme Court heard today. It's being framed as an issue of states' rights: Does the federal government have the authority to usurp state rights by civilly committing sex offenders, or is that a power that accords to states alone? According to National Public Radio, "conservatives seemed to be split on the question, with Justice Antonin Scalia strongly opposed to the federal law, and Justice Samuel Alito appearing to endorse it, along with some of the court's liberals." As we await the court's ruling, you might want to review the transcript of the oral arguments yourself, and form your own impressions of what the justices were thinking. Isn't the Web amazing?

It's available HERE.

New resource: Master archive on "Flynn Effect"

The so-called "Flynn Effect" is a big deal these days in capital litigation circles. Named after the New Zealander who first noticed it, the effect refers to the gradual rise of the population's IQ scores over time. Raw IQ scores are going up about 9 points per generation, making test developers scramble to renorm their tests to keep the average IQ constant at 100.

As I posted about the other day, under the U.S. Supreme Court's Atkins ruling banning capital punishment for mentally retarded people, an IQ score can literally mean the difference between life and death. So debate over this Flynn Effect has been a big part of Atkins claims, with prosecutors and defense attorneys arguing over whether IQ scores should be "adjusted" up or down based on the year an IQ test was published, and courts ruling that this is indeed an important consideration.


In response, Kevin McGrew over at the Intellectual Competence and Death Penalty blog has just put together a master archive of the burgeoning Flynn Effect research literature. As McGrew explains it, the goal is to amass all of the relevant research "in one location for use by researchers, expert witnesses in such proceedings, psychologists who engage in intelligence testing, and lawyers and officers of the court." The project is supposed to be value-neutral, and McGrew promises to update the archives as new material becomes available.

It's quite a visually impressive undertaking, and well worth checking out (HERE are the instructions, and HERE is the cool visual display depicted above) if you're involved in this area of practice.